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Maybe we want to make sure that these columns here, B, C, D, E, F, and G are all exactly the same width.

Much of the time, when you adjust column widths and/or row heights, you need not go into the menu system.

You can simply use the boundaries between columns or the ones between row numbers to make adjustments.

Now, two possibilities here. If we want all these monthly columns to be wider, since we've dragged across to select them, we can point to any boundary between column letters, click and drag.

Notice as we do this we see the number of pixels above it.

Now, most of the time we don't really care, but sometimes you might. I'll make these seventy-five.

Main idea is I want them of a certain width, and I want them all to be the same.

If I were to click right here on the boundary between F and G, holding down the mouse, it's seventy-five pixels, and over here between B and C, same thing.

Now, it could be that these numbers vary a little bit.

Do we want column H to be the same? We could possibly make it be the same.

We could just click here, and it is seventy-five already, but we could possibly make that wider.

What if we wanted these to be just as wide as they need to be? By double clicking, you activate a feature called best fit.

This doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be the same width.

In fact, as we look at them, it looks like February might be wider than January. Why is that? The numbers aren't any wider, but February takes up more horizontal space than January.

What I'm getting at here, without getting too picky, is that the idea that at different times we have different needs.

You can click and drag to make any column wider, if you've got multiple columns selected, you're gonna make that happen on multiple columns.

If I want just column D to be narrower, I can certainly click and drag this way or double click to make it be so called best fit.

It's pretty apparent I wouldn't leave them in this look here. If I want all columns to be a best fit, in other words I want each column to be wide enough to handle the widest entry, then simply click in the upper left corner, double click any boundary between column letters, and we see what's happening there.

If I were working with this and adjusting column A manually, and it's too narrow, column E is too wide, and for the moment I'm doing this on purpose, some are too wide, some are too narrow, we can readjust all of them quickly simply by clicking in the upper left corner, then double clicking any boundary between columns.

You're much less likely to want to adjust row height, but you can certainly do that in the same general way.

Maybe I want these numbers to stand out a little bit more.

Maybe I'm going to be printing this and I want some space between these.

With these four rows highlighted, I'm going to click one of the row boundaries and drag downward.

Now it's taller. Each row is taller, as we wish, here. We can also, after doing this, possibly adjust the placement of the text within these by going to a button here for middle align, make the data appear that way.

At different times we've got different reasons. At any time you can take any column, make it wider or narrower.

At other times you'll double click for so called best fit. Sometimes these adjustments seem to happen almost automatically, and sometimes you'll be putting in a long word or entry, maybe this says Balance of Payments.

Now, looks like the column's wide enough, but if it weren't, what would happen? It spills into the other column over here because that cell's empty.

Later, if we want to adjust, double click the boundary between A and B. Does that. Take this out, press Delete, now double click.

It re-adjusts because that's no longer there. If you have a merged cell, you might not be familiar with how that works, but if you have a merged cell here, it essentially is ignored.

If this were not merged, and I'll go to Merge & Center here and un-merge it, sometimes you're in for a surprise here.

If I were to say, "Let's make column A be a best fit," I'll double click the boundary between A and B, and it does that.

In that case, if you didn't want to merge but you wanted column A to adjust, you'd have to do column A manually, and then adjust the others as needed.